God Save the Queen
by SecondQueen
Summary: After the bureaucratic catastrophe that was the destruction of Earth, the only remnants of the planet are Arthur Dent and his bathrobe. ....Oh, yes, and a cassette tape of Queen's Greatest Hits.


Disclaimer: I do not own _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ or "Somebody to Love," "Seven Seas of Rhye," or any other songs by Queen I may mention.

My first time writing in the Hitchhiker's fandom, so hopefully I am in the ballpark with characters. Or at least playing the same sport...

"God Save the Queen"

Ford Prefect was rifling through the contents of his leather satchel soon after the horrible, stupid Thursday (Tuesday, he thought, but it was hard to tell without a traditional planet bound sunrise and sunset to tell how many days actually had passed) when he found a primitive Earth device pushed to the bottom. It was a small rectangular box covered in buttons with awkward earpieces attached by a thin cord, and inside was a small piece of plastic enclosing thin strips of brown tape. This was the second most amazing piece of technology known to humans; called a Walkman (the most amazing has already been established as the digital watch).

If the editors had accepted all of Ford Prefect's writing, instead of editing his Earth entry down to "Mostly Harmless" (a fact he was still quite bitter about)_ The_ _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ would have had this to say about the Walkman:

_A Walkman is a personal music playing device worn mostly by young humans (see teenagers), furthering their ability to be disrespectful to the elders by either feigning deafness or actually drowning out the outside world with rock music, as well as making them oblivious to traffic, fellow pedestrians' screamed warnings about said traffic, and the honking horns of angry motorists while jaywalking._

Arthur Dent, the former inhabitant of the former planet, had been almost catatonic. He had been watching the stars from the Heart of Gold bridge, and coming to terms with the fact that he would never eat another Big Mac ever again. While his physical heart was thrilled not to be leaden with the extra cholesterol, his mind was figurative heart was mourning the loss of the golden arches and the feeling of comfort and familiarity that came with them.

And that accursed machine could not make a simple cup of tea. "Share and enjoy," he growled to no one in particular.

"Pardon?"

"Wha?" Arthur's mind had been so wrapped up in his homesickness and malicious fantasies about the NutriMatic that it was currently too overloaded to deal with humanoid interaction.

"Nevermind," Ford said. This was a horrible habit he had picked up while on Earth. As all Earthmen and women reading this know, it is one of the most irritating things a person can say because then the person it was said to can do nothing but mind what was said and obsess mildly over whether or not it was important.

The narrator would like to note that "obsessing mildly" is a neat trick if one can do it, and wishes to scold the author for dragging such a contradictory idea into an already convoluted and roundabout story.

"I just found something you might want to hang onto," Ford said, pushing the Walkman into Arthur's hands and bit his tongue in a successful attempt not to tell him how much most museums would be willing to pay him for the relic.

Arthur thanked him for the gift, to which Ford only nodded, smiled, and then very quickly hurried away from the bridge. He was clenching his teeth and grinding them slightly to keep from involuntarily screaming the number. He was behaving even odder than usual because the number was so large that it actually resembled the probability of winning the lottery on Earth more than it resembled the amount of the winnings. Sometimes doing the right thing and being a caring friend can be extremely painful.

Arthur opted to just call this puzzling display Ford Prefect being Ford Prefect and let his strange behavior slide as usual. Arthur checked the cassette in the player which was unlabeled, and slipped the headphones on tentatively, hoping for anything besides bagpipe music, or even worse the New Kids on the Block who, contrary to all claims, were not "hanging tough."

He was pleasantly surprised to hear the very recognizable wail of "can anybody find me somebody to love?" Arthur Dent was deemed quite dull, and this might have been partly because of his disinterest in all things deemed cool, music included. However, on the rare occasion he turned the radio in his car from the talk stations to music, he would always turn up the Queen.

He muttered along with the music, too inhibited to actually sing along aloud since he was worried that me might be even more tone deaf than he thought.

Forty years later, Zaphod Beeblebrox was once again getting his hopes up and plaguing himself over what an ape descendent had mumbled in passing. The human had blushed deeply and stammered and refused to elaborate when questioned about it.

Zaphod hummed. "Hmmm… I descend upon your earth from the sky…dun dun dun… take you to the seven seas of rye…"

Seven seas of rye - oceans of whisky, vodka, and beer – seemed implausible, but perhaps it was one of Magrathea's greatest creations for a client Zaphod Beeblebrox could really dig.

Maybe if he had been a little more patient, and a little kinder to the Earthman, Arthur Dent would have explained to Zaphod that he had misunderstood the meaning of the song entirely, and besides that, Rhye wasn't even a real place.

Poor Zaphod. Wasting forty years on an entirely pointless mission.

Poor readers. Wasting their time on an entirely pointless story.


End file.
